Part 10 (1/2)

There were six starters, and when Jack took his place on the outside, he was the finest-looking boy of the lot. Not having grown so fast, he was more rounded and filled out than the others, though he carried not an ounce of useless tissue. His arms and legs were better developed, and his face was clean cut as a cameo.

Kitty sat directly on a line with the tape, on the top row of seats, between the Lee girls. One of them, I could see, was keeping a watchful eye on the west, where the thunder heads were gathering.

But Kitty did not see any clouds, not she. She did not care if the deluge came after this race; and what was a shower, or a wet gown? She was red and pale by turns, breathing hard, and had both elbows on the top rail behind her, as if to brace herself for the ordeal. Wonderfully attractive was she in this att.i.tude of repressed excitement, and though the grand stand was full of pretty girls, dressed in their best bibs and tuckers, I saw none to compare with her.

When Jack glanced up at her, she leaned forward and waved her hand, giving him a look that brought the color to his cheeks. But when he turned, got on his mark, and put out his hands, his flush faded, the half smile disappeared, and in their place came as stern a look of resolution as I ever saw in a boy's face.

And yet I doubted he could win.

True, he was just the one to do a shade better in compet.i.tion than in training, but Black was likely to do no worse (unless pulled back by the sodas), and with a strong five seconds to the good, it was a beautiful race to guess on.

”Marks! Set!” The bang of the pistol, with its little wreath of smoke rising in the still air, and they are off. ”Crunch, crunch, crunch”

sound the quick feet on the cinders, a stout fellow, not half trained, taking the lead, and bound to drop out before the ”half,” unless I am no judge. They disappear a second behind the catcher's fence, emerge again, swing round the turn, straighten out again, and the men are well trailed, as usual, at the lower turn. Down the stretch they come, and just before they pa.s.s the posts Black jumps into the lead, amid the applause of the grand stand. Where is Jack? Why, where he ought to be with the pace like this, and three-quarters more to run. He has followed my orders to the dot, starting off easily (one of the almost impossible things to teach a young runner), trailing behind the field, and he finishes the first quarter last of the six, and a full twenty yards behind Black, running strong and well, though not so showily as his rival.

I see poor little Kitty's face grow white and hopeless as they go by.

Round the track they swing again, two men dropping out at the lower turn, already run off their feet, and one of them the stout fellow, as I expected. Indeed, as they pa.s.s the posts the second time all have come back a bit to Jack but Black, and Kitty's face is touched by grim despair, for that dreadful twenty yards still stretches between the one she wishes to win and the one she tried to put out of the race.

On the third quarter Jack lets out a link, picking up one after another, until only Black leads him, and when they start on the last lap he is running strong and fairly fresh, only ten yards behind, and the rest trailed badly.

Kitty's face is the queerest mixture of hope and fear I ever saw.

Black runs with the confidence of repeated victories in trials, and attempts to open up the gap again; but Jack has a bit up his sleeve still, answers with a little spurt of his own, will not be denied, and is only a bare five yards to the bad as they straighten out for the last hundred yards.

Here Black glances over his shoulder, and I can see his look of surprise. Jack has never been so close up at this stage of the game. It is evident that both the boys are approaching ”Queer Street,” ”Queer Street” with its pounding heart and panting lungs, its parched mouth, singing ears, and leaden feet. Both are game to the core, and it is now only a question of endurance. Here is the runner's purgatory, where the sins of the past are settled, and here it is that Kitty's ice-cream sodas take a hand in the sport.

What would Black give if he had not imbibed their awful sweetness?

Inch by inch Jack draws up on him, his jaw set, his eyes aflame, his stride shortening, but still quick and straight. Black's face is leaden, his eyes gla.s.sy, his long legs giving at the knees at every stride.

Down the stretch they come, the crowd on its feet, but too excited to yell, Kitty with her hand over one eye, and her handkerchief tight between her white teeth.

For twenty yards they run almost side by side, and then Jack pumps ahead and breaks the tape, a winner by a scant yard. Black follows over in a heap, staggers a step or two, and falls before any one can catch him.

Sick, was he? Well, rather!

He had a touch of colic that doubled him up like a gra.s.shopper. He groaned and coughed, he writhed and twisted, like a lobster on the coals. I knew it was not a dangerous matter, and gave him little sympathy, extracting a half confession concerning his training escapade of the previous evening.

Kitty, the little Jezebel, blushed like a rose when Jack waved his hand at her, as he was carried off on the shoulders of some enthusiastic friends.

Little did he know how he came to win over a faster man; little did Black understand there had been a plot for his undoing; and unless she reads this story, Kitty will always think her secret is a secret to all the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Atherton's Last Half]

Back in the mountains of North Carolina, where the air is like a tonic, free from all taint of river mist and swamp malaria, and medicined by the fragrance of pine and hemlock, lives Teddy Atherton.

His house is perched on a spur of the mountains, and can be seen with a good gla.s.s from Asheville on a clear day. It has green blinds, tall wooden pillars, and granite steps. It is the pattern that New England builders used to fancy fifty years ago or more, and looks a bit strange in its setting of mountain and forest. Here Teddy spends his time among his books, fis.h.i.+ng and hunting, in the company of his dogs, or the society of an occasional friend, truant from business or profession.